number of kits for netherland dwarfs?????

Before I found this forum, I used to go to another fourm that was mostly for piggies, but it did have a rabbit section. One of the posts I happened to ask while I was there was how many kits an average, first time nother, netherland dwarf had. I asked that question becuase all of the books i read, websites I visited, and people I talked to, said about 2-4 kits. Then, when our bun had 6 kits on her first pregnancy...I was shocked!!! :shock:

I only got one answer to the question I asked, and I cant make real sense of it. Here is what they told me:

It depends on your doe. If she is a dwarf doe 2-4 is normal. Usually only 1-2 viable kits though because of peanuts(kits with a double dwarf gene). If she is a BUD (which if she had 6 viable babies sounds like it) they dont have the dwarfing gene and will grow over the weight limit and have larger ears. They can have the larger litters without the risk of peanuts. They make nice brood does because of that. Congrats on the kits!

What I dont understand is what would make a female a BUD? and what are peanuts???

Some of that makes sense, but I still need some help. From what I did understand, this fits our situation completely. Aspen(the mommy bun) is rather large and to tell you the truth doesn't look much like a nethy. The daddy fits to the standards a bit more, biut not much. They weigh around 3 pounds and have large ears. Also, all six of our babies are very large and are way past the netherland dwarf standards. That goes for their ears too!!! Please, it someone knows more about this subject...help clear this up for me!! Thanks

Dwarf genetics are incompletely dominant. To get a proper sized dwarf rabbit, you need one dwarf gene (d) and also one regular gene (D) Two regular genes (DD) gives you a rabbit that is too large. These are called BUDs (Big Ugly Does) and BUB (Big Ugly Bucks). Two dwarf genes (dd) gives you a peanut, which I think are a lot smaller than the others hence the name. Peanuts unfortunatly are not able to metabolize their food and will sadly die within three days.

That does explain our situation because the mommy and the daddy are very large!!! Hmmmmmm....thanks! That clears that up for me

yep that is correct u can also get peanut in mini rex but not so common u can get then in mini rex because when they were reducing the size they were breeding nethie bucks to standard rex does
becky

All I know is my netherland dwarf had four kits first time and one the second time.

Betty

Beebop said:

Dwarf genetics are incompletely dominant. To get a proper sized dwarf rabbit, you need one dwarf gene (d) and also one regular gene (D) Two regular genes (DD) gives you a rabbit that is too large. These are called BUDs (Big Ugly Does) and BUB (Big Ugly Bucks). Two dwarf genes (dd) gives you a peanut, which I think are a lot smaller than the others hence the name. Peanuts unfortunatly are not able to metabolize their food and will sadly die within three days.

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Awww not fair - we have an overweight blue doe who is named Rosebud but regularly gets called Buds :? Now it won't sound the same again She is large but she ain't ugly and I defy anyone to tell her that :shock: She'd have your fingers off in a second :shock: :lol: :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol: ...I'm sure all of the larger nethys are not ugly!

Awww I never said they were ugly!!! Somebody decided to call them that!! :shock:
How could anyone call a bunny ugly? All well as I said I never called them ugly! :lol: